


Blue eyes

by Surthys



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-23
Updated: 2017-03-06
Packaged: 2018-09-26 11:29:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply, Underage
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,083
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9894230
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Surthys/pseuds/Surthys
Summary: After a brutal awakening into the galaxy, Grunt is sent on a mission by Shepard on palaven.There he will discover what kind of krogan he truly is.





	1. 1) Brutal descent.

**Author's Note:**

> No beta reader, so any mistakes are mine. But as always, I try to reduce the sheer number of them.
> 
> I only own my imagination, thanks goes to Bioware for the rest, but then, FU bioware for not expanding the information we've got on Turians. (I hope Andromeda will correct that)
> 
> Also, I stretched the timelines, like: the hunt for Saren took twelve years, and the collector event will last for 13 years. (2 with Shepard out of commission)

Shepard was sitting in the conference room, elbows on the surface before her, deep into her thoughts.

Just a few days before, they were on Omega, dragging Vakarian's ass out of the fire.

The retrieval of archangel had been easy, but it was to be expected with two cerberus agents, the best of what humanity has to offer, even the N7 couldn’t compare, as they were bound by rules and regulations, but Cerberus… Cerberus was efficient.

The outcome of the operation though, wasn’t great at all.

Of course you could have counted on the alien to sent everything go haywire, by staying out of cover like a fucking blue ass marine at his first day of boot camp.

Shepard had no use for a badly damaged Turian, he took a slot in the medbay, and worst of all, her yeoman Kelly Chambers was a freaking Xenophile, just the thought of her, cradling his ugly face and whispering into… whatever his ear was.

“Ugh…”

Shepard made a face, before shooting this line of thought in her head with a cain, preventing further contamination.

And thinking about Cain, she just discovered a way to get rid of some of her problems.

“Joker?”

“Yes Commander?”

“Set course for Palaven, and activate the stealth system.”

“Err… you want us to slip past the best defense grid in the galaxy unnoticed?”

Shepard doesn’t found the need to dignify this second guessing with any answer, and just glared at the nearest camera.

“All right. Setting course for palaven, ETA: 15 hours.”

Shepard pinched the bridge of her nose wondering why Cerberus found the need to hire this poor excuse of a pilot who with his disabling condition kept getting on her nerves on a daily basis. Couldn’t EDI took over this annoyance? She wasn’t human, nor living, but at least she was engineered by Cerberus.

=-=-=--==--=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-==-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Coughing.

I was on my knees, and I spat the amniotics fluids I had in my lungs.

All my senses were rebooting in my head, after being into mother so long, it was strange to experiment the world Okeer kept talking me about.

I was focusing my vision, but suddenly, a sharp flash of pain erupted into my left leg as a human was there, holding an eviscerator into her hands.

I had barely the time to try to roll out of harm’s way, before the human repeated this treatment with my other limbs.

Only when I couldn’t move anymore, face on the ground, barely managing to stop my throat from yelling out of pain, that the human approached.

She kicked me into my destroyed left shoulder, getting a growl of pain out of me, and levelled her shotgun with my temple, looking at me with a wrinkled face, for whatever emotion she was trying to convey.

As my limbs were already healing on themselves, I only had to try to gain time if I ever wanted to get the upper hand.

“What do you want Human?” I spat

The female just took her shotgun in her hands once again, and shot point blank all my articulation once again, waited, and repeated the operation a few times.

On the third occurrence, I howled.

Then, for the first time, the Human spoke in an even tone, as if she was bored.

“Did I authorized you to speak Krogan?”

She was still looking at me. All strength had left me, as I was hungry like never before. The enhanced regeneration was a gift into battle, but the worst curse ever when one was captured, and tortured. I tried to think about what to do in this situation, the pain was intense, but still, I managed to remember some information from my time in mother.  
‘If captured and with no clear way of escape, either it’s weaklings, and you have to wait for an opportunity, or it’s trouble, and you’ll have to submit completely.

Submission then, as this female was clearly more than trouble, even if her species was ‘overgrown pyjack’.  
The human introduced herself as Commander Shepard, and told me her problem

“There is currently a Turian in my medbay, he’s injured, and heavily drugged, he is no use for me in his current state, add to that a Baby Krogan with no fighting experience in one room at the engineer level, and you’ve got a lot of space wasted on my ship.”

She marked a pause, locking her eyes with my left one, my pupil involuntary retracted focusing on her.

“That’s why, I’m going to send you to Palaven.”

I nearly scoffed, but then my still destroyed shoulders remained me to keep my mouth shut.

“You will get Vakarian to his family, and personally oversee his return at his top sniping skills, in the same time, you’re going to do everything within your power to get some experience in the Turian military. I expect results. Question?”

“Why not Tutchanka?” I asked.

“Do you have any idea how many ‘true krogan warriors’, born, raised and trained on Tutchanka I killed during my career? A fuckton! So I’m trying a new approach here, maybe learning how to walk with a stick up your ass will make you a worthy opponent for me and my enemies, until then, you’re worse than shit as I have no other use for you than trash disposal.”

I remained silent, but barely, as I would have entered into bloodrage if it wasn’t for my empty stomachs who were trying to eat themselves.

“Here, your omnitool with coordinates, credits for a day, and some diagrams from our salarian about Turian physiology if a complication occurred during your entry into Palaven’s atmosphere, as for your identity…”

She looked over me, still kneeling into a large puddle of my own blood, and a sneer of some sort appeared on her lips.

“Grunt will do.”

She tapped a few times on her own omnitool, and set mine correctly, before tossing me the device, but as I couldn’t lift my arms, It dropped into my blood.

“There are some supply in the escape pod N°2 as well as your main objective. Usually I wouldn’t need to remind you what would happen to you should you fail at putting him back together, but just in case you would think that death could protect you from me, know that I have been resurrected by my employers, and that Cerberus could find your dead body even if you were crammed up a reaper ass.”

With that, she turned on her foot, and stepped out of the room, letting me here, alone in my blood.

I’ve been awake for only a handful of minutes, and already I hated being alive.

Taking hold of the omnitool, I managed to get on my foot, and tried to find the escape pod.

Fortunately, a VI indicated the way for me.

When I opened the hatch, a turian was sleeping there, attached to the harness, but without any other accomodation, his head was dipped heavily on the front, and his arms and legs were sprayed as if he had fallen into the harness after a freefall.

Though I knew I had to correct his stance if I wanted to prevent his body from further degradation, I looked first for the promised supplies.

When I found the stash, I was about to put my hands on one of the nutrition bars when the pod’s latches were released separating it from the ship.

Having still a few minutes before the landing, I opened the wrapper and wolfed down the bar.

It tasted horribly but I knew why when taking a closer look on the plastic wrapper and all of the other bars, I noticed the Dextro symbol, everything here was dextro. That damn bitch had sent me on a dextro world, with a turian in a damn pod filled with dextro food. Again, only the impending touchdown of the pod prevented me from going berserk, but barely.

I took a seat next to the turian, secured his head, but I couldn’t close my harness around me, as it was a few inches too small for being of any use.

I was about to curse her again, but the pod’s floor meeting my face brutally prevented me from further recriminations.

=-=-=-=-=-=

When I awoke some time later, I was one again in a puddle of my own blood.

Groaning, I stood up, and wolfed down 3 more rations, even if dextro, I would be able to process it, as I was Krogan, I have the ezyms for it, but still, the taste was both acrid and tangy.

I looked up to the Turian, and sighed as a sense of relief washed over me.

This surprised me somehow, as I was taught by Okeer to hate Turians, but also, that I was considering the Shepard as my battlemaster… It was logical in some twisted way, since I submitted to her, but it left me a bad aftertaste in my mouth… or maybe it was the rations. Stupid life anyway.

As I exited the pod, I landed on a fresh white surface. ‘Snow’ provided my memory.  
I looked around, and was taken aback from the scenery.

All around me was a panoramic view of a beautiful planet, full with life, fierce and unforgiving for the weak, far from the derelict poor excuse of a planet Tutchanka was.  
Were the Krogan homeworld reflected years of lost battles, and a previously proud and flourishing species, now reduced to misery, scavenging food in sewers, and fighting pyjack to keep it, The Turian Homeworld was beautiful, magnificent, and well defended. Far on the horizon, was some megastructures, made of silver, reflecting light, some huge green forests between cities, and lots of mountains, some high enough to have some snow at the top of it, but otherwise, the flanks were harsh, and earthy, but still looking far from dead.

Coming to my senses, I wondered if this damn battlemaster had chosen the highest mountain as a target for the pod just to piss me off by making this mission more complicated than necessary.

I got back into the pod, and took all rations into my armor pockets, and also stuffed the turian one.

One last check confirmed that there wasn’t any water, nor weapons or clips, I grumbled, but then I unlatched the harness on the Turian and pondered about how to move him.

without any stretcher it would be difficult to move, so I teared off a seat with the harness and made a contraption with some belts. It took quite some time as my short fingers weren’t designed to tamper with little things.

Few minutes later, I put the Turian into the seat, secured him to the metallic bars, then put on my back the improvised device. 

Ready to go, I opened the omnitool, and found the coordinates plus a map of my surroundings, at last something useful!

I looked upon the star… Trebia, if I believe the tank’s information, who was high in the sky, then go on my way.

Two hours later, I finally reached the point where the snow couldn’t maintain it’s form anymore, It would be easier from now on, but first, I have to find a source, since my throat was dry. It wasn’t urgent for me, but I figured that if I was thirsty, the Turian should be too.

When I spotted one later on, I finally detached the Turian from my back, having kneeled before to prevent him from falling and immediately I didn’t like the way he was shivering.  
Reaching the water, I wondered how to bring it to the turian, as I haven’t any cup under my hand.  
I looked at my armor, for something curved to transport the water, the one on my legs was too big to fit the hole where the water was running, but my codpiece….

“He... he... he…”

I unlatched it, and bring it down the hole to collect water. After tasting it to be sure it was normal water, I drank to my content and then, brought the Turian next to the source and tried to make him drink, but all the water was escaping by the sides of his face, under his mandibles.  
It took a lot of patience, but I managed somehow by putting my hand under his good mandible, plugging the obvious escape on the side of his face, and then I poured some water a few times when he stopped to cough.

How do Turians eat with this kind of mouth? Bah… whatever.

I put a ration bar in his gullet with my finger, and poured some water on it to force the turian to gulp it down.

He was stated, but still shivering.

I put him on my back again and reattached my codpiece, then returned to the path leading to wherever my battlemaster wanted me to go.

On my way, there was some path who were dangerous for both of us, especially a small way along a rocky wall, where I had to try to grip myself on some jutting rocks to prevent a deadly fall, but later on, the civilisation started to make an appearance, as a clear path made of earth, but delimited by a wooden barrier was ending on a panoramic view.  
The trees started to make an appearance, they were small, but resistant. Looking like normal green conifers, but with a faint iridescent shine on them.

The sun was starting to fall behind the mountains, but I was still far away from the objective, so I took the path to climb down in the right direction, after I checked the map.

Few hours later, I still advanced in the night on the path. I crossed some flat expanses of fields from time to time, but was still on my way to the objective. Everything was silent around me, except for the sound of my feets, the clinging of my armor, and some clicketty I didn’t know from where it come.

Now that I think about it.

I kneeled once again, and put the turian on the ground, he was trembling like a dead leaf in the wind.

I sighed in annoyance, as I hadn’t any cover to heat him up, his armor was damaged, and out of energy.

I took a look of my surroundings, lightly lit by the reflection of Trebia on one of the moons.

I spotted some depression in the soil next to a stone wall, and I stuffed the Turian in it, with his armor still on, as I didn’t know how to remove it without tearing it apart. Then I removed mine, and get inside next to the Turian, in only my underwear, I used my armor to make a shield against the wind, as best as I could.

When I was satisfied with it, I turned my back to the entrance, directing as much heat as I could to the Turian.  
The small space was slowly warming, and the Turian, still shivering, stopped to shock his teeths together.

I put an arm under his head to ease the tensions in his neck, and reflected on my brief existence into the universe, not a very good first impression, but I wasn’t born to live a life of luxury, so whatever.

Hoping tomorrow will be better, I closed my eyes, and let myself slip into slumber.


	2. Hunted

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

“Central, here is patrol unit 25A102, we’ve got a visual on the E34-c, transmitting exact coordinates.”

“Copy that 25A102, sending reinforcements, follow the procedure. Over.”

One of the agents pushed a button to play an automatic message, while his partner maneuvered the police skycar around the escape pod. The headlight slicing through the night and freezing fog did nothing to appease the two agents in their patrol car, as it was the first time an unidentified escape pod managed to land on Palaven. The navy had been alerted, and the threat level had been raised to ⅘.

A few minutes later, 5 other police skycars, and 25 Kodiaks with the Cipritine best units were incoming on the crash site.

While the police was securing a landing zone, making sure there wasn’t any booby trap, nor alien biological contamination, in the area, before scanning the pod.

When everything was clear, and showing no lifesigns into the pod, they approached cautiously, with an Anti-Electronic Warfare team in tow.

“Clear!”

“Clear!”

“Phase one over, commencing phase two”.

The A.E.W. retreated to cipritine command, while the other police team started to scan the pod and the close area for organic informations  
The obvious frozen red puddle on the pod’s floor helped them a lot to gather the facts that at least one krogan male was on palaven.

Three agents in full grey armor where in the pod, lightning it wit UV-light to highlight any organic matter, and some devices to spot any hidden biohazard contamination.

“What do you think? Bloodpack?”

“Too soon to be sure, also how could the Bloodpack manage to slip past our defense grid unnoticed?”

“Euh, Sir, I’ve got turian blood here.”

“How many?”

“Little, only a few drops.”

“An hostage?”

“Can’t tell, but other than one of the seats having be completely teared off the ground, it don’t seems there was any fight into this pod.”

“Who knows, maybe it’s one of us bringing his krogan mate to his family?”

“Pff! Korvan... “

“What? It’s a possibility.”

“You should stop spending all this time on Fornax and work more on your stance when shooting a sniper. What was your score last time?”

“Stop it you two, we’ve got a job to finish before sending the wargs.”

The three turians finished their scanning, taking scaleprints, and when the pod was thoroughly searched for any other evidence, they called the S.A.N.D unit, as for Search Apprehend Neutralise Destroy, to the site, transmitting them the necessary clearance to access the current case’s dossier.

Cipritine command didn’t send any updates, so everything was to be executed as usual when a fugitive was on the run.

When the police took off, the S.A.N.D arrived, and checked the cameras on the Wargs, making sure everything was fully operational one last time before letting them loose on the Krogan’s trail.

12 Wargs launched themselves on the trail left by the Krogan, screeching lowly, while their scales where clicketting softly.

“Let’s go.”

“Finally! Of all the places on Palaven they could have landed, it had to be the 0,4% of snow…”

“I like snow…”

The Wargs masters looked at their colleague and even through their helmet, he could make out their disbelieved subvocals.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

I awoke with a minor but persistent pain in my flanc, the Turian had just clasped his claws into my flesh.

I swatted his hand away, but he was still asleep and shivering, even if the temperature was going up, as Trebia was rising in the sky.

After I extricated ourselves from under the rock, I couldn’t stop myself to look at the surroundings with awe. But something told me to hurry up.  
A strange sensation, coming from my chest. What could it be? seizure? internal blood loss? instinct? 

As the Turian was slumped, face on the ground, I took him and strapped him once again to the seat.

I was about to put back my armor when some low frequency sound came to my auditory canal. Predators… and lots of them. No time to put any armor then. I catched the Turian as a backpack, the sudden movement making him groan of pain, but I couldn’t care less right now.

The best way to slow these incoming predators was to jump off the cliff. While fastening the belts of the seat around me, and tightening the lengths as now that I was only in an underwear, I wasn’t as large as before, I catched a tree to slow down our fall, and slided on the unstable ground. Further down, there was a precipice with nothing to prevent us being transformed into pulp at landing this time, so I ran on the edge until I found a steep slope where I could slide and, without hesitation, I let ourselves drop on it.

Using my right arm and leg to take the brunt of the scraping rocks, and trying to slow our fall, I was focusing on the detail of the slope, trying to dodge the jutting rocks and ignore the pain, until the ground came to us at full speed.

When I awoke again some time later, there was no more predators around, as they had to find another way. I put the turian on the ground, and checked my injuries.

With my hand right hand completely shattered, and both my ankles dislocated, and some bones fractured, I Just had to wait to regenerate. I took the last ration bar from the turian pocket, as I had to do the heavy lifting, and looked at his injuries.

This lucky bastard had just lost some paint on his scarred armor, and his bandage had been torn open by some of the rocks, It was oozing some blood, and was dirty.

With no water around, I took his head, and licked it clean, dampening his bandage.  
His taste was horrible, as it reminded me some informations: ‘don’t feed on a turian unless necessary, better being used as wall decoration, or on spikes at the main gates of their city.’  
Grunt didn’t find this information any useful and bored him.

When he felt he could resume his travel, he took once again the sleeping and shivering turian, he knew he should have looked to the information provided on his omnitool to see if there was anything to be concerned with this, but he had more important matters at hand.

His hand wasn’t completely healed, but he ran anyway, trying to reach his objective before the twilight. His map showed him that he took a shortcut with this cliff, and was about to reach Cipritine outskirts.

The idea of walking in the middle of a turian mob, wearing only his dammaged boxer, and an injured turian on his back wasn’t very appealing, but that wasn’t going to stop him. Even if his chubby tail was poking through the hole on the back of his underwear.

When he first encountered some conscious Turians, their reaction wasn’t as he expected.  
Instead of cowering with fear, or trying to kill him, they just laughed as they watched him running.

The more he closed on his target, the more people there was.

Some took vids with their omnitool, others took a defensive position or got their weapons ready, but all in all, it was the turian reporter who was the most tenacious, but thankfully, the mob magically cleared before him making a path for him to follow and hindered the reporter in his attempt to keep up with him.

All around was some buildings, some huge estates protected by some high walls, and some parks where turian childrens where running in pack, chasing some kind of scaly pet.

The map lead him in front of one of the biggest residence he had seen during his short life. After he found and punched the intercom, he didn’t had to wait for long before a flanged voice answered.

After a short moment of indecision, the guardian opened the gates after Grunt showed him the Turian he was carrying, though he has to wait in the patio after some turians took care of the injured one.

So Grunt found himself, sat on a curious bench, in his underwear, looking at some… herm… well, it has to be something of value because there was some spotlights directed at it, and it was surrounded by dark colored flags and banners.

There was some Turians around doing some chores, but Grunt knew better, from their stiffness and hidden holster, they were around to keep an eye on him. He didn’t mind as it would have been stupid to do otherwise. All of this made Grunt nervous and so far he hadn’t exchanged a lot of words with the people around him. He could feel the tension in the air. Add to that a rumbling noise coming from behind the doors, and you had an explosive situation waiting to go off in your face. He decided it was for the best to try to diffuse it, so he stood up, and turned himself to the next Turian, “What are…”

He didn’t have any chance to say more as suddenly, the doors behind him bursted open, and two rows of three armored Turians poured into the patio.

Grunt had just the time to hear “On the ground! Now!” before they started to shoot at him.

Without any armor and it's integrated medigel dispenser, his flesh was being torn apart as he felt to the ground.

The last thing he saw was a Turians going to club his not fully formed faceplate with the butt of his rifle. As he faded into unconsciousness he could only thought ‘Not again…’.

 

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

“Target secured.” said one of the officers as he was cuffing the knocked-out Krogan.

“Good job Fire team, proceed as per protocol.”

“Copy HQ, ETA 12 minutes.”

When the Krogan was firmly secured on an armored stretcher, they brought him into a patrol car, and took off to the headquarters.

Fifteen officers had been commissioned on this case, and when the main suspect had been spotted making his way into the Vakarian household, the situation went dire, commissar Publius had to ask executor Flavia a special authorization to break into the compound, there has to be repercussions aftewards, the Vakarian family was not to be trifled with, but not for the officers as they just did their duty following orders.

The convoy proceeded along its route to the headquarters, all sirens blazing, full speed ahead.

People were looking at this spectacle for a moment before trying to guess what could have happened for 25 patrols cars having being dispatched in the area with their previous interlocutors.

Evidently, it also attracted the attention of the press who was close behind, the thrill of the chase fueling the passion of the reporters, as the journalists were already covering the event on the news.

The people of Cipritine were soon sending all sorts of comments on the extranet, because they lived into one of the safest place in the galaxy, where the criminal activity was as common as snow on the capitol, and any police intervention was even rarer than that.

After arriving onto the main hangar, the officers moved the still unconscious Krogan into an interrogation cell, still attached to the stretcher.

Medigel was applied to his wounds, enough to stop him from further bleeding, but not enough to give him a complete recovery. Scans were done on him, to see any irregularity, and to access to his profile, and that’s where a lot of irregularity popped.

“So what do we have?” asked commissar Publius when he entered the room where lots of officers were compiling informations and performing researches. One big screen showed the interrogation cell N°1 and his occupant.

“Suspect is Krogan, male, genetically engineered.”

“How so?”

“He has the height and disposition of a fully developed adult with a complete set of redundant organs, but his genetic markers show he was born from less than a week to yesterday.”

“So he is to be treated as an infant? What a nightmare. Try to cover it up, we can’t let the press known we have shot a baby krogan.”

“Yes sir!” answered one of the cyber division officer with laughter in his subvocals.

“Anything else about his identity?”

“That’s where the profile division have a problem, his omnitool is heavily encrypted, and we haven’t managed to crack it open yet.”

“Why? have you asked Klabinsky, he’s our best at these tasks.”

“He is the one who tried sir.”

“Then we’ll wait, in the meantime, try a facial ID to see any potential lead on him, I doubt we’ll have anything since he’s this young, but it’s worth a shot.”

“I’ll tell Klabinsky sir.”

“Tell him also that if he don’t crack this omnitool open before the suspect woke up, he’ll be the one to ask his cooperation.”

The officer clamped his mandibles against his face, pitying his colleague before turning heels and heading to the profile division.

Commissar Publius sat in his chair, and started to review the procedures, but he’ll have to improvise, not wanting to interrupt executor Flavia a second time. One rookie mistake he made when he was a few years younger. He shuddered thinking to the beatdown he took in the sparring ring back then when she came to ‘inspect’ his organisation.

A few minutes later though after he began to read all the documentation about the case on his datapad, an agent approached.

“Commissar, the suspect is waking up.”

“So soon?” he look at the main screen where the Krogan was stretching, or testing the resistance of his bounds. “Well, I suppose it will have to do. Commencing standard procedure, it’s 17h84m34s, we’ve got 40 hours. And tell Klabinsky!” he added; a snicker in his second voice-box.

He waited patiently, looking at the seemingly bored beyond measure Krogan on the screen.

When Klabinsky entered, he was followed by two of his colleagues, acting surely as moral support. Publius smiled at how some pressure could strengthened his team unity. 

“Hello sir. I am lieutenant Klabinsky, Here is officer Kaius, and officer Alvécius. Can you understand us?”

“Yes of course I can understand you, Turian, but I fail to understand why I’m here.”

The officer told him the reasons why he was being chained to the wall, Publius has to give it to the Krogan, this interrogation was far more easier than he expected, the Krogan was extraordinarily compliant, for a Krogan, and so far, no death threats had been issued on either side.

Finally, the Krogan named Grunt accepted to present his identity, and transmitted the data to the lieutenant.

The main screen split in two, presenting on the left side, the legal ID of the krogan.

Quickly, everybody freezed in the office, all subvocals clampered, and a feeling of an impending doom crawled into publius spine.

Right next to his name, a well known symbol was spinning slowly.

[ Grunt ][ Krogan ][ Normandy SR2 ][ 2 days GST ]  
Special Tactics and Reconnaissance (Assigned agent). [Authorisation: Spectre Shepard, Jane : 243 FH 01***].

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, I'm not consistent about updates, but there will be fluff.  
> Not right now though...
> 
> I'm trying to make everything coherent in this story.


End file.
